Light Aircraft Incident on LuxAirport Runway Delays Passenger Flights

Published on Wednesday, 30 Aug 2017 18:39
by ED

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Due to an incident involving a private light aircraft, Luxembourg airport was closed by airport authorities yesterday evening, Tuesday 29 August 2017, at approximately 22:00; many Luxair flights were redirected, before passengers could be repatriated to Luxembourg.

Ten Luxair flights were expected to arrive after 22:00 at Luxembourg airport. They therefore had to be redirected to a neighbouring airport, Frankfurt Hahn. Frankfurt Hahn airport reached its maximum capacity as the evening went on, so flight LG922 from Hurghada had to land at Liège.

The Luxembourg runway was later reopened (at 02:00), and most of the Luxair flights (8) could nevertheless come back to Findel, landing between 02:20 and 02:50.

Maximum consecutive flight times for flight crew are regulated by strict directives, so LG6556 flight from Roma could not take off again from Frankfurt Hahn to go back to Luxembourg. Luxair therefore organised alternative transportation in coaches, in order to repatriate affected passengers to Luxembourg as soon as possible. Passengers arrived early this morning at Luxembourg airport. The aircraft was then repatriated to Luxembourg via a ferry flight this morning at 10:17, in order to operate today’s allocated flights, for Wednesday 30 August 2017.

For the same reasons, the flight from Hurghada could not leave Liège last night. Coaches were also organised for passengers affected by this, so they could get back to Luxembourg as soon as possible. This could only be organised later this morning.

The empty aircraft left Liège and was repatriated by two pilots. Unfortunately, they could not accept passengers due to security reasons. Indeed, following last night’s disturbances, all the stand-by cabin crew had already been attributed to other flights and none were available to operate this flight. Repatriation in buses was therefore deemed to be the most suitable solution.

The buses were supposed to leave Liège at 09:00, but were delayed due to traffic disruptions during the journey. This meant that passengers could not board the buses before 10:30 this morning. They then arrived at Luxembourg airport at 13:30 and were assisted by LuxairTours representatives, with whom they could discuss the situation. Compensation has been granted to all clients concerned. Snacks prepared by LuxairServices Catering were also distributed.

This sequence of events had a significant impact on the flightplan. Delays to flights to and from Djerba and Las Palmas were unavoidable.

LuxairGroup apologised for the inconvenience caused by this incident and thanked passengers for their patience and understanding.